Comparison between iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max: New design, new colors, but is it worth upgrading?

Apple's Far Out event has officially taken place, and the top-of-the-line iPhone 14 Pro Max has also been unveiled (alongside the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, and iPhone 14 Pro). With every new generation of iPhone, users always pose comparison questions like between the two flagship devices iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max, which one is the better product at the current time. Should you buy iPhone 14 Pro Max or iPhone 13 Pro Max? To answer these questions, please refer to the comparison between iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max below!

See more:

• Comparison between iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max: Bigger or more compact?​
• Comparison between iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Plus: Clear differences!
• Hands-on with iPhone 14 Pro Max: Using the punch-hole display is quite intriguing!
• Latest on iPhone 14 Pro Max: Many worthwhile upgrades and quality improvements

Comparison between iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max: Design

When it comes to the design style of both iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max, they both have significant similarities. The most noticeable difference between these two phones comes from the color of the back panel, the design of the camera module, and the front display.

First, considering the external visual factor which is color, this year, the iPhone 14 Pro Max still maintains the same three basic colors: Black, Gold, Silver. If last year, the iPhone 13 Pro Max had a cool light blue color (Seria Blue), this year Apple brings users a beautiful new color, which is Purple. It's really hard to determine which color is the most beautiful because it all depends on each person's taste. For me, the Blue color on the iPhone 13 Pro Max didn't excite me much, but the Purple color has made me 'fall in love' from the first look and I really want to get my hands on the iPhone 14 Pro Max immediately.

Next is the design of the larger camera module compared to last year, making the back of the iPhone 14 Pro Max quite 'bulky' compared to many other competitors. Of course, the larger camera module also means that the iPhone 14 Pro Max has larger and upgraded lenses compared to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, which I will discuss in the next section.

Finally, what I find extremely exciting on the iPhone 14 Pro Max this year is the hole-punch display. After many years of the 'notch' design, starting from the iPhone X to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, when looking at other Android competitors using hole-punch displays, now the iPhone 14 Pro Max also adopts this design. Instead of the familiar 'notch' shape, Apple chooses a 'pill-shaped' display. Personally, I highly appreciate this change because I believe this is something Apple should have done since the iPhone 11 series, not just now.

Overall, the iPhone 14 Pro Max still looks the same in general, with its shiny metal frame and square, masculine, and elegant design. The big difference this year comes from the new colors, the size of the rear camera module, and the hole-punch display.

Comparison between iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max: Display

As mentioned above, the iPhone 14 Pro Max features a 'pill-shaped' hole-punch display to replace the familiar notch on the iPhone 13 Pro Max. Overall, the screen size of the iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max is the same, both at 6.7 inches.

However, the iPhone 14 Pro Max brings a highly attractive hole-punch display. Instead of just serving facial recognition and selfie camera functions, this hole-punch display acts as a notification receiver. Above this hole-punch, users can receive device connectivity information, adjust calls, play music, etc., similar to regular widgets. This helps make the iPhone screen less monotonous and saves a lot of display space.

In addition, Apple's flagship iPhone 14 Pro Max still features an OLED panel, supporting HDR10 technology and Super Retina XDR for sharp and lifelike display quality. Alongside the improved display quality, the iPhone 14 Pro Max's screen is equipped with extremely high brightness of up to 2000 nits, making it the brightest display phone, coupled with a 120 Hz screen refresh rate for smooth touch gestures.

Furthermore, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is equipped with the Always-On Display feature, something many users have been eagerly anticipating. However, instead of displaying a black screen with a clock and a few emojis or images, the iPhone 14 Pro Max adopts a dimmed screen style for the lock screen. This means you can still see all the content on the screen, including the phone wallpaper.

By now, many of you must have noticed the significant differences between the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the iPhone 13 Pro Max, right? While the display quality and touch sensitivity on the iPhone 13 Pro Max remain excellent, the iPhone 14 Pro Max brings a much more exciting feel due to design changes, features, and overall usability improvements compared to the old version.

Comparison between iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max: Camera

This year, there's a lens upgrade on the iPhone 14 Pro Max to 48 MP, a step up from the iPhone 6 - iPhone 13 Pro Max. This is understandable as competitors like Samsung, OPPO, etc., are making significant strides in camera capabilities, so a camera upgrade was inevitable, sooner or later. With the new 48 MP camera, the iPhone 14 Pro Max can capture better image quality, true-to-life colors in various conditions, especially in low-light environments, something the iPhone 13 Pro Max wasn't highly rated for.

Furthermore, the rear camera of the iPhone 14 Pro Max is enhanced with many more professional photography and videography features. For instance, the ProRAW feature at 48 MP allows users to capture extremely high-quality original images for easy post-processing later on. Additionally, Action Mode helps stabilize frames even more, allowing people to capture high-speed scenes with minimal blur.

Overall, speaking of camera features and image quality captured by the iPhone 14 Pro Max, it surpasses the iPhone 13 Pro Max by a significant margin, even compared to previous generations. This upgrade is entirely reasonable as Apple incrementally enhances the camera with each generation, but with the iPhone 14 Pro Max, it's a significant leap forward. However, don't underestimate the photography and videography capabilities of the iPhone 13 Pro Max, as its quality still ranks among the top-tier devices available today!

Comparison between iPhone 13 Pro Max and 14 Pro Max: Specifications

As of now, the performance of the iPhone 13 Pro Max with Apple A15 Bionic still leads the pack, enabling the device to handle tasks smoothly, stably, and deliver an extremely satisfying gaming experience. However, the iPhone 14 Pro Max with Apple A16 Bionic brings even more superior power, coupled with better energy optimization capabilities.

Speaking briefly about the Apple A16, this processor includes 6 GPU cores with 2 performance cores and 4 power-efficient cores. Overall, the Apple A16 allows for extremely fast, smooth processing and superior performance, making the iPhone 14 Pro Max once again the most powerful smartphone to date, surpassing other devices in its class. Additionally, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is equipped with internal storage options similar to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, ranging from 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, allowing you ample storage for your personal data, photos, videos, and apps.

Talking about battery life, the iPhone 14 Pro Max will continue to be upgraded to even longer usage times, as according to Apple's announcement, the device can play video for up to 29 hours, stream for 25 hours, and listen to music for 95 hours, which is extremely impressive. Therefore, I believe the iPhone 14 Pro Max will offer exceptionally long regular usage times, potentially 1-2 days depending on each person's needs. For more details, let's wait for our review of the iPhone 14 Pro Max battery!

Overall, the performance of the iPhone 14 Pro Max is undoubtedly far superior to that of the iPhone 13 Pro Max. However, I'm sure you won't notice the difference between the two because Apple's optimization capabilities are so good, even with older models like the iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 11 Pro Max,.. still performing quite well in the market. Therefore, I think the iPhone 13 Pro Max is still one of the most powerful phones currently available.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to experience both the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 briefly, so I will use specialized performance benchmarking software like 3DMark Wild Life, GeekBench 5 to provide you with a more comprehensive overview of the power of these two products. Before sharing the results, let me quickly go over the conditions for benchmarking:

• The device's battery must be between 90 - 100% (battery below 90% will affect the device's performance).
• No charging during the benchmarking process.
• Run 3 times and take the average result after 3 consecutive runs.
• Both devices are running on iOS 16 and the battery status is 100%.

First is the GeekBench 5 software with single-core/multi-core tests, we can see the superiority of the Apple A16 on the iPhone 14 Pro Max compared to the previous generation. For those who don't know, the A16 chip is manufactured on TSMC's latest 4nm process and is also an upgrade from the 5nm process in the previous chip generation. The A16 Bionic chip is a combination of production on the latest 4nm process, including up to 16 billion transistors. It has 6 CPU cores including 2 high-performance cores and 4 energy-efficient cores, with performance increased by up to 40% compared to the previous version.

- GeekBench 5 (single-core/multi-core):

• iPhone 13 Pro Max: 1,739 points / 4,517 points.
• iPhone 14 Pro Max: 1,887 points / 5,354 points.

However, the graphic processing capabilities of the iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro Max duo are not significantly different, as seen in the GeekBench 5 GPU Compute test.

- GeekBench 5 (GPU Compute)

• iPhone 13 Pro Max: 14,376 points.
• iPhone 14 Pro Max: 15,508 points.

In the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test, I observed that the iPhone 13 Pro Max continues to lag significantly behind its successor with a total score of 2,365 and an average FPS of 14.2. These numbers for the iPhone 14 Pro Max are 3,372 points and 20.2 FPS, respectively.

- 3DMark Wild Life Extreme.

• iPhone 13 Pro Max: 2,365 total points, average FPS 14.2.
• iPhone 14 Pro Max: 3,372 total points, average FPS 20.2.

For the intensive graphics test like 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test (automatically repeated 20 times), the iPhone 13 Pro Max demonstrates higher stability with 83.2% (compared to 79.7% on iPhone 14 Pro Max). This is further supported by the difference between the highest loop score and the lowest loop score. On the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the difference is only 410 points (2,447 - 2,037 = 410 points), whereas on the iPhone 14 Pro Max, it's 639 points.

All the numbers in the above test show that the iPhone 13 Pro Max will have better stability when handling heavy tasks (gaming, video editing, etc.) over a long period. This is understandable because the iPhone 14 Pro Max features a chip with a new 4nm process, which hasn't been optimized well yet. Perhaps we need to wait a few months for the new iPhone model to deliver better performance. If you scroll down to the results below, you can see that the battery percentage of the iPhone 14 Pro Max drops significantly after completing the test (the device drops 16% battery), whereas this figure for the iPhone 13 Pro Max is only 5%.

Should You Buy iPhone 14 Pro Max or iPhone 13 Pro Max?

Choosing between the iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max is truly challenging as both are the top-of-the-line products at the moment and offer long-term usage for the next 4-5 years regardless of how many versions come out.

In my opinion, iPhone 14 Pro Max is an extremely high-quality product and worth upgrading to even if you own iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 12 Pro Max, or earlier models, because the upgrades are so fantastic compared to the previous version. However, if you are still satisfied with iPhone 13 Pro Max, you can continue using it and wait for a more refined version of iPhone 14 Pro Max, such as the iPhone 15 Series.

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Explore more:

• First impressions of iPhone 14: Price at 18.8 million, satellite connectivity, new colors
• First impressions of iPhone 14 Plus: Price at 21.2 million, strong battery, new colors
• First impressions of iPhone 14 Pro: Purple color, 48 MP camera, price at 23.5 million

The camera marks a groundbreaking step in the iPhone 15 series, including iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max unveiled by Apple on September 13th. The main camera boasts a 48MP resolution, night mode, intelligent HDR, and 4K video recording capability.